The increasing color depth and resolution with which motion video imagery is digitally captured, stored and viewed now rivals the quality of film-based photography at even a professional level in which expectations of sharpness and color reproduction are heightened. However, these increases also result in increased data sizes, resulting in increased storage capacity and processing requirements for every operation that entails some degree of video processing, including transcoding.
Various types of video compression have been employed in the compression and decompression of video data that represents motion video. Among those types of video compression are versions of the widely used Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) specification promulgated by the International Organization for Standardization of Geneva, Switzerland. Specifically, versions of MPEG known widely as MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 (also known as H.264) are widely used in transmitting motion video via satellite, over-the-air and cable-based distribution systems, and as streamed video data via networks (e.g., the Internet). Currently under development is a new version of MPEG known among its developers as high-efficiency video coding (“HEVC”) or “H.265” that updates various aspects of MPEG to better address the commonplace adoption of “high definition” television resolutions. Unfortunately, the coming of so-called “4K” resolution (e.g., 3840×2160 pixels) motion video makes clear that increases in data sizes will continue despite improvements in video compression.
This has direct bearing on the difficulty of implementing various forms of transcoding as may be employed by content providers, distributors and others to alter aspects of motion video such as frame rate or resolution, and/or to augment motion video with such features as subtitles and/or other features. Such transcoding often involves both decompressing motion video to enable the intended alterations and/or augmentation, and again compressing the motion video thereafter. In commercial applications such transcoding is often performed continuously with minimal planned interruption, but interruptions due to malfunctions or maintenance inevitably occur. The affects of any such interruption are often made worse by the need for destination devices to build up a buffer of received video data, even after the interruption is over, before decompression to enable display of motion video can even begin coupled with the sheer size of the video data that must be received to build up such a buffer despite improvements in video compression.